Storrs Lovejoy Olson (April 3, 1944 – January 20, 2021[1]) was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008.
One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known for his studies of fossil and subfossil birds on islands such as Ascension, St. Helena and Hawaii.
Their contact at the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH)—administered by the Smithsonian—earned Olson a summer job in the Fish and Wildlife Service under Richard C. Banks the next year.
[4] During their pioneering research work on Hawaii, which lasted 23 years, Olson and James found and described the remains of 50 extinct bird species new to science, including the nēnē-nui, the moa-nalos, the apteribises, and the Grallistrix "stilt-owls".
[6] In 1982, he discovered subfossil bones of the long ignored Brace's emerald on the Bahamas, which gave evidence that this hummingbird is a valid and distinct species.
[7] In November 1999, Olson wrote an open letter to the National Geographic Society, in which he criticized Christopher P. Sloan's claims about the dinosaur-to-bird transition which referred to the fake species "Archaeoraptor".
[8] In 2000, he helped to resolve the mystery of Necropsar leguati from the World Museum Liverpool, which turned out to be an albinistic specimen of the grey trembler.
[12] He was formerly curator of birds at the United States National Museum of Natural History; as of 2009[update], he held an emeritus position in the institution.
[19] In addition, a sand stargazer fish, Storrsia olsoni has its binomial derived from and honouring Olson, who collected the type off Brazil.